by Andy Maslen
“Killed Debra Fieldsend, Charlie Howarth and Hester Ragib? Yes.”
“OK. No point in my denying those accusations, then?”
“Not really. But I wouldn’t call them accusations. Not really.”
Stella’s brain lit up. If she’d been watching a cartoon called Stella’s Krazy Kills, a giant lightbulb would just have popped into life above her head.
“You’ve been letting me do it. Haven’t you? You couldn’t have PPM exposed publicly. It would wreck the reputation of the British justice system around the world.”
“They were so far beyond guilty there was no question that a jury would have convicted, but we couldn’t be sure they’d ever let it get that far.”
“You’re like me. Vigilantes. Like PPM! This is beyond fucked up, isn’t it?”
“Try to look at it rationally, Stella. If this had come out, it would have made institutional racism at the Met look like a minor breach of etiquette. We needed to have it kept quiet. And it wasn’t just us. Gordon took it to the Department of Justice. The Secretary of State himself approved it. Then took it all the way to the top.”
Stella ran a hand over her cropped hair, scratching at the skin beneath and wincing as her nails caught in the healed-over wound at the back, where Monica Zerafa’s gold rings had laid her scalp open.
“I’m a government assassin, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Better than being a government cleaning lady, believe me. I had to sort out Debra Fieldsend’s freezer.”
Stella experienced a brief flashback. An hour spent naked, using Debra Fieldsend’s expensive kitchen knives, one of them mains-powered, to dismember the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer on her own kitchen floor after smashing her head in with a cast-iron skillet. So much blood.
“Sorry. I wasn’t feeling myself that day.”
Callie grimaced.
“It’s fine. Let’s just say it’ll be a wee while before I buy frozen meat again.”
Despite the grotesque subject matter, Stella was seized with an urge to laugh. She tried to hold it in but she felt she was being hijacked by her own brain. She slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as she stared at Callie, but it was too late. As the hysterics rose, unbidden, she jumped up and grabbed a pillow off the nearer bed and smothered her face.
When the racking pain in her abdominal muscles outweighed the wild, cathartic joy of the laughter, she fell silent, and dropped the pillow.
Callie wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t giggling. Not so much as the ghost of a smile disturbed her features. Stella suddenly felt anxious.
“What is it?” she asked.
Callie reached into her inside pocket.
“I’ve got plans for you, Stella. Unfortunately, they involve your death.”
42
Death Notice
Jake Tanner turned to his neighbour, a pretty Indian detective constable whose skin he thought of as the golden-brown of autumn. He knew if any of his mates could hear his internal poet struggling to describe the precise shade, they’d take the piss for weeks. He’d been trying to pluck up the courage to ask Friya out since the first day she’d joined the command. Trying not to let himself be distracted by her almond-shaped eyes and flawless complexion, he asked the question he could hear being whispered all over the office.
“What’s going on?”
“Search me.”
Reflecting, ruefully, that although nothing would give him greater pleasure, the invitation was purely rhetorical, he shrugged.
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
They had been requested by email to gather in the CID office at 8.30 a.m. The email had come from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Rachel Fairhill, an officer so many rungs above them on the ladder that only her ankles were visible beneath the clouds.
As the thirty-odd detectives grew increasingly restive, the whispers turned into murmurs, which turned into mumbles, then open conversation. Which was snuffed out like a candle by the whuff of the door opening.
In strode DAC Fairhill herself, followed by a new face. A slim, fortysomething woman in a sharp navy suit and medium-height heels. Auburn bob brushed back behind her ears. Deep-brown eyes that seemed to look right through each detective whose look she caught, lips accentuated by red lipstick, incongruous against the serious expression and sober outfit.
Fairhill spoke.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I’m Deputy Assistant Commissioner Rachel Fairhill. And yes, before anyone says anything, it was a long climb down from my ivory tower, thanks very much for asking.”
An appreciative ripple of laughter dispersed some of the tension in the room. Jake turned to Friya.
“Not bad for the brass.”
She rewarded him with a smile that lifted his heart, and his hopes.
“I’d like to introduce Detective Superintendent Callie McDonald. As some of you may have noticed, Detective Chief Superintendent Collier hasn’t been around for the last few days. That’s because Adam has taken leave of absence. At this point in time, I can’t tell you why,” she paused as a second ripple passed through the room, of murmurs this time, rather than laughter, “but as soon as I can, and I very much hope it will be positive news, you will be the first to know. That’s a promise. In Detective Chief Superintendent Collier’s absence, Detective Superintendent McDonald will be assuming command of the MIC.” She turned to Callie. “Over to you, Detective Superintendent.”
Jake turned to Friya and whispered. “McDonald? They’ve parachuted in a bloody Jock!”
“Better than a bloody Paki, though,” she deadpanned.
Jake felt the blood rushing to his cheeks.
“Oh, no, God, I mean, nothing wrong with the Scots, or the Pakistanis. I mean some of my best—”
“Relax. Joke. Plus, I’m Indian, remember?”
At the front of the room, Callie was speaking. Jake tuned back in.
“—of you may well be thinking, why the fuck have we got bloody Braveheart running things? And she’s not even a chief super. Well, it was as big a surprise to me as it was to you. So, I hope to get to know you all personally over the next week or so. To get the ball rolling, and to make sure we all start off on the right foot, unlike a lot of bosses, I don’t really care what you call me. Guv is fine. If clichéd.” A subdued mumble of appreciation passed through the room. “Boss, ditto. Ma’am, if you must. Callie, at a pinch, if you’re doing good work. Now—”
She paused, and Jake, being a keen student of body language, noticed a fleeting expression of sadness cross her face: indrawn brows, lips momentarily downturned, eyes scanning the far horizon. He turned to Friya.
“All overtime’s cancelled.”
She rolled her eyes. Callie resumed speaking.
“I’m afraid I have to begin my leadership of this command … this really, really, fine command, with some very sad news.” She turned to the DAC, and a look passed between the two senior cops that Jake, despite all his enthusiasm for non-verbal communication, could not decipher. “It is with great sadness that I have to inform you of the death of Detective Inspector Stella Cole.”
The room erupted. Shouted questions clashed in midair. Sobs were heard from more than one corner. Callie patted the air for silence.
“What happened, ma’am?” Jake called out.
“As you all know, DI Cole was, unfortunately, sectioned last week. We believe that the stress of returning to work after the deaths of her husband and baby daughter triggered some sort of psychotic break. While an in-patient at St Mary’s Hospital, DI Cole was attacked by another patient. It wasn’t serious, but after the attack she, well, she escaped, basically, in the middle of the night. She was hit by a car on Praed Street as she emerged from the hospital grounds. It was instantaneous. She didn’t suffer.”
The room erupted. Cries of anger, grief and bewilderment built in volume. Questions rained down on the newly installed boss of the MIC and she answered them, as best as she was able, until the DAC stepped in.
&n
bsp; “I know this has been a massive shock to everyone here. You all knew DI Cole. She was an excellent example of what a detective working in the Met can achieve. There will be a memorial service the day after the funeral, which her family has requested be private. You will all be invited and can pay your respects then.”
The briefing broke up. More than few of the assembled detectives, both male and female, were in tears. The new boss retreated to her office, having invited her new team to come and talk to her individually as they felt the need over the coming days.
43
At Last, Some Good News
Steaks in America were bigger, juicier and more flavoursome than those in the UK. Collier liked steak so this was a decided plus. He’d shopped for meat in the extra time he found himself with after the early start. Now, on Saturday lunchtime, with a few of their neighbours invited round for lunch, he was salivating at the thought of eating one of the T-bones he was currently grilling on the gas barbecue. The gas barbecue in the yard. He’d adapted pretty quickly to the US, including the language. He talked about the yard instead of the back garden. About the sidewalk instead of the pavement. About elevators instead of lifts, closets instead of cupboards, vests instead of jackets, stores instead of shops, felonies and misdemeanours instead of crimes. Not everything had a new name, though.
In his preparatory reading for his induction week at the FBI’s training academy at Quantico, Virginia, he’d learned that rape was still rape, murder was still murder, although homicide was the legal term, people trafficking was still people trafficking and terrorism was still terrorism. And, boy, weren’t they keen on terrorism? Well, keen on eradicating it. His and Lynne’s neighbours in their smart suburban neighbourhood would be discussing Russian human rights violations one minute, then nodding frantically the next as each in turn expressed the opinion that torturing terror suspects was not only rational but desirable.
When they’d discovered that he was “in law enforcement” as nearly everyone here referred to police work, it had cast an even brighter halo around him, with his “Briddish” accent and quaint “Olde Worlde” manners. That he was also good looking and always smartly dressed – no cargo shorts or saggy tees for Adam – had led to the racier neighbourhood women adopting him as a cross between a pet and a pool boy. At night, in bed, Lynne and he laughed at the lengths to which these “cougars” went to separate them at drinks parties, barbecues and picnics.
And now it was their turn, his and Lynne’s, to have folk round to share a little hospitality, sink a few cold ones, run some gossip up the pole and see who enjoyed the flutter.
A bulky guy in his fifties came up on Adam’s blind side and clapped him on the shoulder, making him jump.
“Whoa! Steady on, Jeeves,” he said. His name was Gary Frewers and he fancied himself the mimic. His British accent was pretty good, Collier had to admit, if modelled on a class that had largely vanished sometime in the 1930s. His relentless use of it usually began to grate after the third or fourth beer.
“How are you, Gary?” Collier said. “And the lovely Greta?”
“Jim Dandy, old boy. Top hole, what? The missus is over by the pool bending your good lady wife’s ear.”
Collier picked up one of the steaks on a long-tined fork and slapped it back down on the hot, black bars, bloody side down. The gas flame flared briefly as hot fat spattered onto the elements, releasing a fragrant cloud of grey smoke, and the sizzle drowned out Gary’s next sally into upper class Englishisms. Collier gestured with the fork at an ice-filled plastic bucket on the lawn.
“You couldn’t grab me another beer, could you? The steaks are reaching a critical juncture and I don’t want to desert my post.”
Gary smiled.
“Leave it to Beaver, old boy. One Afterburner coming right up.”
Collier sighed and turned back to the steaks. He heard a phone ringing. His phone. Looked around. He’d left it on a lawn chair down by the pool where Lynne appeared to be deep in conversation with Greta Frewers. He saw her turn her head towards the phone. He caught her eye and pointed at the chair. She nodded, said something to Greta then picked up and answered the phone. Her expression was hard to read as she walked towards him across the lawn, stopping a couple of times to receive hugs from newly arrived guests.
Reaching the barbecue she held out the phone.
“It’s the station. In London.” She frowned. “Someone in HR?”
Collier took the phone, poking at the steaks with the barbecue fork.
“Adam Collier.”
“Adam, it’s Linda. I have such good news for you. She’s dead.”
For one bizarre moment, Collier imagined that Linda Heath was talking about the Queen.
“Sorry, Linda. Who’s dead?”
“Her! St …” the line dissolved into an underwater burble for a couple of seconds, “ … out of danger.”
Collier shook his head. Clamping the phone between ear and shoulder, he piled the steaks onto a platter and stuck it on the barbecue’s warming shelf before ringing an old brass school bell Lynne had picked up in a bric-a-brac store the weekend they’d moved into the new house.
Men leading the way, the guests surged politely towards the meat. Collier smiled, gestured at the steaks with his fork then moved back inside, to a deserted living room. His heart was thumping, because he’d allowed himself to reconstruct the missing words in Linda’s breathless speech.
“Say that again, please. You disappeared.”
“I said, Stella Cole. She’s dead.”
“How? When?” Daring to allow himself to hope that it was all over. That he could actually start to enjoy himself.
“Three days ago. She was attacked in St Mary’s and—”
Collier wanted to interrupt. He knew all about the attack didn’t he? After all, he’d procured it. And he knew it had failed. Knew, thanks to his fuckup brother-in-law, that he’d failed. But Linda was in full spate.
“—she escaped. But guess what? She was run over. Oh God, that makes me sound like I’m nine years old. I’m just so excited. She was hit by a car. Apparently, the driver didn’t have a chance. He said she just came sprinting out of the hospital dressed in pyjamas and basically ran out into the road in front of him. She died at the scene. Instantly. Isn’t it marvellous?”
“Marvellous that a talented detective inspector has been killed after being illegally sectioned? I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Oh. No. Of course, I mean, no, not really I just meant that, you know, now you could stop worrying. You’re out of danger.”
“It’s fine. Relax. Look, I have guests. I can’t talk anymore. But thank you for calling.”
“Wait, Adam! Wait.” He detected a note almost of panic in her voice. “What about, you know, what about our work? Now she’s gone, I mean? You can start again. Rebuild your team. I can help you. I am in HR, after all.”
“I don’t know. I need to think about this. I’m about to start a six-month stint with the FBI. Just, keep quiet for now, all right? Don’t make contact again. Just—”
“Hurry up and wait? Isn’t that what you say?”
“Exactly. Hurry up and wait.”
Collier ended the call and pocketed the phone. Breathed deeply. Then let out a yelp of pure, unalloyed relief.
“Yes!”
He strode outside again and marched over to the barbecue. Selected the largest steak he could see, dolloped some of Lynne’s coleslaw onto the plate beside it, grabbed a chunk of garlic bread and took the whole lot, plus another bottle of Afterburner, down the lawn to where Lynne was sitting with Greta Frewers and two other women. He put his plate down and, to stares of frank admiration from the other women, planted a long, lingering kiss on his startled wife’s lips.
“Adam! What on earth brought that on?” she asked, turning a delicious shade of pink.
A dark-haired woman in a red-and-yellow sundress spoke. “Honey, when a man kisses you like that, don’t ask dumb questions. Just say, ‘thank you dear’ an
d flutter your eyelashes.”
This was Sarah Oliver, one of the cougars who clearly relished having this handsome Brit in their midst, even if he had brought the little woman along.
The others laughed and Adam played his role to the hilt.
“Sarah, I imagine you must spend your whole time saying ‘thank you dear’!”
“I wish. Come on. Sit yourself down next to me, you gorgeous man and tell us about all those badass British crooks you put in jail.”
Smiling outwardly, and laughing hysterically inwardly, Collier did as Sarah bid him, and sliced off a chunk of the beautiful, bloody meat. As he put it into his mouth, Sarah threw an arm round his shoulders and pulled him close, before snapping a selfie, pouting at the screen for all she was worth.
That evening, Eddie Baxter called Collier’s mobile.
“Hey, Adam. You all set for your first day with the Bureau? I just got an email from our HR facilitator for the exchange program. Everything’s ready on our end. Get yourself down to the Chicago field office at 8.30 a.m. on Monday. I’ll meet you at the front desk and we can get you all processed, issue your credentials, all that, then I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“That’s fantastic, thanks so much,” Collier said. He realised just how much he was looking forward to the work, now Stella Cole was no longer a threat.
“Just don’t get too comfortable in Chi-town. You’re shipping out to Quantico for a couple weeks. They’ve got a kind of cut-down version of our full training program that they like to put our secondees through. It’s tons of fun. Weapons training, interrogation techniques, which are all legal, by the way. Unlike our friends down there in Langley, we avoid waterboarding people.”
“Remind me of the address?”
“2111 W Roosevelt Road. If you get lost, just look for a big glass cuboid. Like something IBM woulda had in the seventies.”
On the Monday, Collier woke early, but not absurdly so. The decrease in his stress level following the call from Linda Heath had worked wonders on his sleep pattern. Lynne had gone out for a run, madness in Collier’s opinion, given the heat and the humidity, but she enjoyed it, so who was he to complain? He scribbled a note on a Post-It, stuck it to the vast refrigerator and grabbed his car keys.